I didn’t go for martial arts back then so I settled for their movies and Street Fighter video games to live out my fantasies. Man, I must have seen Enter the Dragon at least 50 times by now.

The desire always remained and late last year a spark ignited within me. At the time I felt like there were some gaps in my life. I needed to move on up in my career(which I have) and I needed to be good at something that mattered and didn’t involve being near a computer. I did some soul searching and came with the conclusion that I needed to do martial arts for real in order to complete myself as a person. It was something I always wanted to do and I knew that it was time to finally give it a shot.

“Part of being a man is to be able to stand up and fight if the need arises” is what I thought.

By then, I’ve done some minor training sessions with my friend Shawn who’s been learning Muay Thai and Judo. I liked practicing both and I wanted to go in that direction. I had considered looking into Praying Mantis and Kung-Fu at the Wah Lum Temple, but I didn’t think that was for me. So I decided to look into schools that taught Muay Thai and Judo that were near me and check them out.

I stumbled upon a place within ten minutes from my home that looked interesting: Naja Muay Thai. The gym not only offers Muay Thai and Judo, but they have instructors who teach submission grappling and Capoeira as well. The gym offers a free week to try out any of the classes and they work on a month to month contract. The latter helps if you are a Full Sail student who’s class schedule changes unfavorably every other month. I choose to just stick with Muay Thai for the time being as I feel it would be the most practical style to use in a real fight.

Muay Thai is a hard stand-up style of martial arts that focuses heavily on kicks, punches, knees, and elbow strikes. For that reason it is referred to as the “Art of Eight Limbs.” Muay Thai also has an aspect of clinching your opponent around the neck so you can strike them with knees and elbows. It’s a pretty fierce style and requires a lot of conditioning.

A lot of you who read this blog will think of Muay Thai because that is the style that Sagat and Joe Higashi use in their respective fighting games. A lot of their normal moves(read: not fireballs or tornadoes coming out of their fists!) are accurate to the style but Tekken’s Bruce Irvin represents true Muay Thai in fighting games much better than those two. Some of these characters tend to be the best fighters to use when playing these games. Sagat is high-tier in Street Fighter IV for a reason. It wasn’t intentional; he is as effective as he is in that game because he just happens to be a master of Muay Thai!

And I’m not gonna lie; when I saw Tony Jaa in Ong Bak, I was like “Oh shit, this Muay Thai is for real!” You could destroy a person with Muay Thai if you were good enough with it.

After doing their Muay Thai classes for the free week, I knew that this had to be something that I must stick to. I’ve learned so much since I have started at Naja. I still have a long way to go and much of my technique needs improvement. It’s been almost three months since I have begun my path as a martial artist and I am glad I did. When I train with the others I never feel more alive and the training has put me in much better shape. I hope to keep getting better at this to the point that it becomes a big part of who I am.

Other than to complete myself as a person, I don’t see any other reason to do this right now. Things may change in the future. If I decide to participate in competitive fights down the road, that’s cool and I will do my best. If I get a new girlfriend that gets kidnapped by some unruly gang, I will get a bro and we will destroy them and any other douchebag that crosses our path. If the apocalypse comes, I will become the savior in a world torn by chaos.

I wrote this to let you all know that Muay Thai has been good for me so far. It’s never too late to get into martial arts. It will make you a better person and get you into shape. It will be more fun than being at some lame gym on a machine that does nothing in comparison to what practicing martial arts will do for you.

Naja Muay Thai is located at 7006 Stapoint Ct. Ste. F in Winter Park, Florida and is down the road from Full Sail University. The free week will let you know if any of their classes are for you. From there, it will be a lot of hard work and patience. It will be worth it. You also get to train with badasses like me.

If you ever wanted to be legendary, then martial arts is the path to travel on.